Day 85: Jamee Smith, 4th Grade Teacher

O.R.E.O. Project--So much more than Cookies!

A few weeks ago, I was looking through tweets on my Twitter account and came across something that looked fun and interesting.  Several clicks later and I found my way to the O.R.E.O. Project.  O.R.E.O. stands for Our Really Exciting Online Project.      

This project, developed 15 years ago by teacher Jennifer Wagner, involves a simple bag of original Oreo cookies.  Students are asked to make a predication of how many Oreos he/she can stack with out making adjustments before the stack tumbles.  Sounds simple enough, right?  

My fourth graders made predictions, tallied their stacks, and we graphed our results.  I was proud to our learning community that was cheering each other on as their stacks grew higher and higher.  The students were engaged and smiling!   But, that was only part of the project.  Upon completing the project in our classroom, we posted our results in a Google Form, viewed a map of the world that highlighted where others had participated in the same project across the globe, and received a certificate of participation.  And, at this point, we still weren't finished.  

The last part of the O.R.E.O. project was to use the cookies from the stacks to make a sculpture.  Yes, a sculpture out of the cookies and cream.  Quite honestly, I wasn't so sure where this part of the project was going to go.  But in the end, I was so impressed!  

My 9-10 year olds made amazing sculptures--someone made a panda, several made mountains, several connected to sports.  They were problem solving, being creative and…PLAYING WITH THEIR FOOD!  This project will continue into this coming week as we follow the results of other classrooms.  We were part of a global project!  How great is that! 

You can find more information at http://op2015.weebly.com/index.html.    

So what did I learn?  So much--the power of Twitter and what one can find from a simple tweet,  the power of fun at school, and the power of playing with your food!   I walked away from school on Friday with such a love of teaching!  I had a smile on my face and a pep in my step!  I hope my students did, too!   It is days like this that reinforce why I love my job and why I can't imagine doing anything else! 

**You can see more of our sculptures on our class Twitter account  @FourthGradeHZN!  Follow us as we continue to connect with others doing really exciting online projects! 

We are signed up for the Global Read Aloud that starts September 30 and we will be participating in Jen Wagner's Holiday Card Exchange in November and December.  

Jamee Smith is a 4th grade teacher at Hilliard Horizon Elementary.

Day 82: What We've Learned from HZN165

The Finish Line

In September, we set out to start a blog that would share the learning that takes place at Hilliard Horizon Elementary.  The idea came from a couple of other blogs that set out to share what they were learning everyday.  It has been a great experience and we have learned so much about ourselves and each other.

We are officially at day 165 on the project timeline.  So at the end, I'd like to share what we've learned from this project.

165 days was ambitious, but a worthy goal.  With 82 stories, it's easy to see that we didn't quite make it to 165.  However, I can tell you that even though we didn't post a story of learning every school day, great things happened at Horizon everyday -- more than what can be counted or captured in a story.

Failure is natural and should be embraced.  Did we meet our goal to publish a story every school day?  No.  But it's important to remember the original vision of the project: to share our stories with the world and to show that a learning community goes beyond the walls of the school.  In that respect, we succeeded.  We connected with 24 different countries, making our audience worldwide.  When we continue this project next school year, I doubt we will be as ambitious with the number of stories we aim to publish.  But how would we have known what was possible without setting a goal?  So did we fail? Yes, but failure is a natural part of learning and it can be a powerful force if we choose to learn from our failures.

Connecting our learning community to social media helped us to be lead learners.  Through this blog, we modeled how to interact with social media for our students and our community.  Let's face it: there are more poor examples of how to interact through social media than there are good examples.  By using Blogger, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, and Twitter to promote what we were learning and doing as a learning community, we modeled responsible use of social media for our kids.  We hope to build on this experience and continue to be the lead learners in this area to help our students engage with the world in a positive and productive way.

Finally, thanks to those of you who shared in our learning this school year.  We appreciate the support for the blog through your frequent visits.  You helped prove to us that our stories matter.  And, of course, thank you to those of you who published a story on the blog this year.  We couldn't have done this project without your support.

Have a great summer and we'll see you next school year!

Day 73: Dana Humm, 5th Grade Teacher

Kidblog:  Why my students enjoy blogging about their reading with total strangers.

I have learned that no matter how enthusiastic, energetic, funny, or entertaining I try to be, I will never be completely “cool” in the eyes of my students.  It’s something about the fact that I am the one assigning work, giving out homework, and nagging about forms that are due that make me seem almost like a second mom.  Do I think my students like me?  YES!  Do they want to blog with me about the books they are reading?  NO!

Enter Kidblog:  a website that safely lets students blog about books with total strangers!  Ok, not total strangers.  Currently my students are blogging with students at Columbus State Community College.  The college student and my 5th grader read the same book and then blog weekly to each other about what they read.  They ask each other questions about the book, answer questions from previous blogs, and talk about themselves.  (The whole time I get to monitor their posts to make sure they are appropriate and withhold any personal information).  The quality of writing and book analysis that comes from my students when there is a real-world purpose for it is phenomenal (not to mention that they get to use the laptops!)  I even find my students using their newfound audience to talk about other books they are reading and to make new book suggestions.  It is nice to see them engaging as real readers over real books.  Now if only I were as “cool” as their book buddies!

Student Blog:

“March 7, 2013 at 10:32 AM

Hello again you should get a chinchilla their so cute! I agree about how Jay is selfish. The book Hoot is really good im really far in it. Its probably going to be like Lost and Found a book that you never wished ended. You should read it its an awesome book. Ya I agree never knowing what happens next in a good book is what makes a book so good. Thats what happens in Hoot if I leave off at a good part I just wanna keep reading on. If I were Melissa and I knew the secret then I wouldn’t tell anyone even if I trusted a friend not to tell. Because like what happened in the book everyone was only telling friends they trusted,and then thats how the secret got around. Because every one just had to tell one of there close friends who they trusted. What would you do if you knew RAY and Jays secret? hmm would I tell melissa the secret if I were Jay? I think I would because Melissa seems like she could keep a secret, but like what happend in the book I think I wont tell Melissa my secret ,but I would because Ray even said he felt good to tell someone so maybe I would tell Melissa my secret. What would you do?

I do think that the whole school is going to find out. Because its getting around really fast, and sooner or later the whole school is going to tell because it is a cool secret. So yes I think the whole school is going to find out. Their going to get in trouble probably by there parents. I cant wait to hear back from you. Bye!!!!!!!!!”

Day 57: The Power of a Compliment

The Power of a Compliment

Over the weekend, I received a link for the video below from another educator.  The video shows how one group of students at West High School in Iowa City, Iowa.  The group is called "Westhigh Bros" and they use social media to send out compliments to other students at the school.

It's a great project that I think indirectly challenges all of us to try and create this for every student at ever school.  I'm not sure how we could do this in an elementary building, but I'm not going to let that stop me.  If you have a suggestion or comment on how something similar could be done at an elementary building, please feel free to post a comment.

Enjoy the video!  It's worth it!

Day 52 : Miss Tucker's 1st grade students

Today's post comes from Heather Tucker, 1st Grade Teacher at Hilliard Horizon Elementary

Exploring Changes with VoiceThread

In Social Studies, we are learning about how things have changed over time. 

Each student chose a topic they wanted wanted to explore, for example, TV, games, baby dolls, houses, schools, clothing, telephones, etc. We looked for images of each topic on the internet. This helped us compare things from the past and present and how they change over time. Some students even brought in artifacts from home, like a James Brown record! :) 

After exploring, students drew a picture of what their topic looked like in the past. Then we really had to use our creative thinking and our new knowledge to come up with a prediction of what we think each thing might look like and what it might do to help us in the future. After drawing our pictures, we wrote down a caption to go with each past, present and future picture. We used the computer webcam to take pictures of our posters and then recorded our comments. 

This is such a cool way to share our new knowledge with others!

Take a look at some of the VoiceThread projects students created:

Day 42: Mrs. Marsh's Leadership Academy

What is a leader?

Four weeks ago, Mrs. Marsh started a project-based learning experience with her 1st grade students by asking this simple question:

What is a leader?

The project involved aspects of math, social studies, science, and language arts, and featured leaders like our principal, Mr. Blum, and our superintendent of schools, Dale McVey.

Students began by brainstorming different characteristics they thought described a leader and by thinking about important leaders in their lives.  They interviewed family members about who they consider leaders and what makes a leader.

Mrs. Marsh had different guest speakers come in to talk about leadership.  She coached her students on asking quality interview questions.  Mr. McVey shared that you may think you're a leader, but you're not if no one is following you.  The students compared the different leadership qualities of the guest speakers and added the information to their research.

While the students continued to research and share ideas, Mrs. Marsh read 6 books that featured 6 different characters that demonstrated some sort of leadership qualities.

After researching what makes a leader and reading each of the books, students worked together in cooperative learning groups.  Their task: develop an election campaign for the book character they thought was the best leader.

Students worked on campaign speeches and campaign poster to gear up for the big event: the election.

Next, students campaigned in different precincts (the other 1st grade classrooms) to try and get other students to vote for their book character.  They made campaign speeches to try and win the vote.

After the campaigning was done, the voting began.  Each precinct voted on one of book characters.  As the votes came in, Mrs. Marsh's students tabulated the results:

Somes students were stunned to find that while their book character won in one of the precincts, they did not win the over all vote:

The winner?  Molly Lou Mellon!

Overall, the students learned a great deal about leadership and about what leaders do in order to lead others.

Enjoy this VoiceThread of the book character campaign posters and speeches:

Day 39: Mackenzie, 2nd grade student

Using VoiceThread to Share Learning

Recently, Mackenzie, a 2nd grade student in Mrs. Potter's class, explored VoiceThread.  VoiceThread is a social way of sharing your thoughts and ideas with others.  

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/01/dozens-of-examples-of-voicethread-in.html#.UKFZLLDwsTY

"You can do this anywhere there is a computer," explains Mackenzie.  "I can see myself going to different schools' [VoiceThread sites] and talking to different students on their VoiceThread and making comments."

Mackenzie and her class learned how readers describe characters by thinking about the character's traits.  She also learned that it is important to include evidence from the text when she describes characters.

Take a look at the VoiceThread Mackenzie and her classmates put together.  Use the buttons on the bottom of the VoiceThread to navigate between threads.